With authorities expected to announce the dates for elections in five states in a month, potential candidates in at least one constituency in Kerala have started a door-to-door campaign.
Three candidates, including sitting legislator M A Wahid of the Congress Party, are visiting homes of voters in the Kazhakkoottam, which is expected to witness a fierce three-corner contest this time.
This is one of the four assembly segments where Bharatiya Janata Party veteran O Rajagopal established a lead over his Congress rival Shashi Tharoor in the 2014 parliamentary elections.
“My party had asked me to prepare for the elections, and I have started my work,” said Wahid.
He will be seeking re-election for the fourth time in a row. The first time he won as a rebel candidate against film director M A Nishad fielded by key Congress ally Indian Union Muslim League in 2001.
He re-joined the Congress and continued his winning streak in the next two elections.
His predecessor Kadakampally Surendran, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) district secretary, will be pitted against Wahid again, after a gap of ten years since he lost to the lawyer-politician by a whisker of 215 votes.
“I visit at least 15 houses a day, and that’s part of my routine,” said Surendran, who refuses to deny or confirm his candidature.
The CPM has vowed capture the reins of the state, its last bastion after the northeastern state of Tripura.
Surendran won the seat in 1996 by a huge margin of 24,057 votes defeating IUML’s E A Rasheed.
However, the surprise performance of Rajagopal in the parliament elections could send shivers down the spine for both the principal players.
BJP’s former president V Muraleedharan landed in the constituency after a brainstorming session in Kochi last week with party president Amit Shah, who addressed a massive rally in Kottayam, kicking off its campaign.
Muraleedharan starts his work at 6.30am and continues to be there till late in the evening, concentrating on house visits.
“I see a shift in our favour everywhere,” he said.
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi is arriving in the city tomorrow to address a party rally, marking the culmination of a statewide journey undertaken by its state president V M Sudheeran to keep the party machinery well oiled.
Top leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, are expected to descend on the poll-bound state in the coming weeks.
Rajagopal is likely to contest from Thiruvananthapuram while BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan is expected to seek election from Nemam.
Vattiyoorkavu is another BJP target for opening its account in the assembly. It is the principal opposition in the Thiruvananthapuram Municipal Corporation. It hopes to win at least 15 seats in the 140-member assembly.
Rajasekharan says his party is contesting this time to “win and rule the state”.
He expects the major fronts to crack if voters give a fractured verdict. In such a scenario, smaller parties could switch sides and join hands to form a new coalition.
In the 2011 assembly elections, the BJP could muster only 6.06% votes, which went up to 10.33 in the parliamentary elections three years later.
The party has been aggressively wooing backward Hindu caste groups, including Ezhavas and Dalits, who constitute around 40% of the state’s voters and considered to be the backbone of the CPM.
They hope to change the political landscape forever if this “social engineering” works, which many believe is farfetched, and also cashing in on the credibility crisis in the Congress and CPM rivals.